The cross layout consists of six cards, laid out and then read in this order: “This is her, this crosses her, this is from below her, this is behind her, this is from above her, and this is ahead of her.” See below what the layout looks like.
1. “Her” is the ego card. Your conscious stance on the issue, your decision-making capability, your free will, your unencumbered soul. It is her. This, to me, is generally the most ambiguous card, likely because it’s the layer closest to us—since we have complete access to our ego, narrow insights into it feel incomplete and vague. But maybe that’s just me, and this card is very clear to you.
2. “Crosses her” is the conflict card. Not a value judgement, just a conflict. It pertains most directly to whatever you’re doing the spread about, and usually its significance will seem self-evident. If it seems more obscure, it might be because the issue you thought you were doing a reading on is concealing a true conflict beneath it. This card is sideways, so neither upright or inverted, and the conflict is generally between the upright and inverted interpretations of the card.
3. “From below her” is the childhood influence, repressed id, flesh/desire/instinct, internalized coping mechanisms or trauma responses. As a subconscious influence, it’s what drives us when we aren’t paying attention, and if we were animals it would be the only card on the vertical axis. When I interpret this card, I go back to childhood: is there something from my youth that mirrors my current cross? Have I repressed something that this card is poking it? Not all subconscious defense mechanisms are bad: many of them serve genuinely to protect/benefit us.
4. “Behind her” is the material world, the foundation, the past, the exposition, the cause for your cross. Sometimes this card feels sort of irrelevant and self-evident, but it’s helpful to see where you’re working from to divine the full arc of the story.
5. “From above her” is the superego, spirit, God, morality, value set, influence from above. This shouldn’t be interpreted as something absolute, however—even our most high minded sentiments are given to us by someone else, and we have the ability to counteract them as they guide us on our path. Like the influence from below, it’s something your subconscious is telling you (although I feel instinctively that it’s less subconscious than from below—the superego is the one doing the repressing of that id, for good or bad) Ask: is this something I really believe, or something the father/law/church/professor/social media community told me? Then: if I believe in it, am I striving toward realizing this value? If I don’t, am I subconsciously pursuing it anyway?
6. “Ahead of her” is the road you’re on, the path of least resistance, the thing that will come into being if you’re not paying attention. It is where your id and superego will guide you without you having to grasp control from your natural inclinations. If you’re happy with your interpretation of the card, then you can rest easy that you’re well equipped to handle the cross. If you’re not, you’ll have to struggle to take control of the situation. But you always have that control. Above everything else, you always have your god-given free will and, in fact, that will was given for precisely this sort of situation.
This layout evokes two symbols right away to me: Jesus’s cross, and the crossing axes of the cartesian plane (the x and y charts you’re familiar with from algebra). Jesus’s cross emblemizes the coexistence within him of the divine and the human—the vertical plank stretches up to heaven and down to earth—and, like his cross, our tarot readings with this layout attempt to reconcile the flesh and spirit, aspiration and desire, superego and id, moral code and childhood coping mechanisms, and give us an understanding between them so that we can make our own choice. The high card—the spirit—and the bottom card—the flesh—are reconciled in the middle, with the self card. Jesus’s cross can also give us perspective on the ”cross” card in the spread—it isn’t a bad card, just as Jesus’s crucifixion wasn’t bad. It’s just the challenge you’re faced with, like you will always be faced with challenges. If you take your high ground in the situation (whatever that looks like) then whatever your cross is now will become a boon to your character, a place that affords you empathy to other people who are struggling, et cetera. Like Jesus, sometimes the cross is something you have to embrace in order to be reborn, perhaps eschewing both divine and flesh to do so.
The analogy of the cartesian plane (while less essential to the spread) can help illustrate how this vertical axis of spirit, flesh, and will moves along the horizontal axis, time. Like how each x has a given, instantaneous y value, at any point in time you lean closer to or further from your flesh or spirit. Thinking about time as a graph can also help evoke the perspective this spread wants: although the x axis of the graph is centered around your cross, you were once instead at the left card and may one day be at the right one, always with the same fight between spirit and flesh which is the human condition.
This spread isn’t meant to predict the future. Everything it lays out is completely grounded in the present, including the “ahead” card—I consider this card to be the path you’re on, but not one you’re tied to. It’s where you would end up were you to never exert will over your instincts and inclinations and proceed only on the path of least resistance. The other three cards (left, above, and below) are only there to give insight into why you’re on that path. Everything future-oriented in the spread is optional. If you puzzle out what you believe the top card to indicate about your values and you find that you don’t like that value, then what the cards are indicating is that you need to stay conscious of how that value is influencing your response to your cross and intentionally keep your actions from reflecting that internalized value. Same with the bottom card.
I see the cards as being divided into material/realized and abstract/influential. The ego, behind, and cross card are all material and have (crucially) already come to pass. They can’t be changed, but they can be moved forward from. The influences from above and below and the ahead card are immaterial, and although they affect you, they can absolutely be rejected (although not without some effort). No spread is bad, only perhaps easier or more difficult to deal with. Wouldn’t it be nice if all our influences were positive, parents always perfect, and values always pure!
Might add more thoughts here as they come to me...